Loeb stretches lead over Sordo

The world champion started the afternoon loop of stages with just a six-second gap to his young teammate, but Loeb now has a comfortable lead of 25 seconds which he hopes to maintain on Saturday.

"Everything is going well," he said. "We have a constant gap to Dani now so hopefully we can keep that tomorrow."

The Frenchman was clearly pushing from the start of the afternoon, as a small off during SS6 damaged his passenger side door when he briefly lost his brakes. However, he was still the fastest through the stage.

It was also Loeb's first full day of competitive driving since injuring his arm last year, and he admitted to feeling some pain as he became more tired.

"I have a bit of pain, especially at the end of the long stage," he said. "But the car is going well, maybe I am just a bit tired."

Sordo managed to narrowly snatch one stage victory from Loeb in the afternoon, but the Spaniard was happy to have a comfortable gap back to Marcus Gronholm in third place.

Gronholm had lost time in the morning with a gearshift problem, and by the end of the day's running he was not too concerned about the pace of the new Citroen C4.

"They are fast, but not so so fast," he said. "We made a mistake with our tyre choices before the rally so our tyre compound is too soft."

The Finn added that the tyre problems meant that Ford were going to be constantly at a disadvantage to Citroen, and he has already turned his attentions to the next round in Sweden.

"We are always one or two steps behind them at the moment, but I am still confident for Sweden."

Chris Atkinson remains in fourth place, although the Subaru driver is not sure if he can push any harder to hold off Mikko Hirvonen, who is just 17 seconds behind in fifth.

Toni Gardemeister did enough in the final stage of the day to keep Petter Solberg at bay, as the Norwegian looks to pick up points from an event where he has lacked consistency.

However, the 2003 champion was very pleased with Subaru's new tyre supplier BFGoodrich.

"We are learning about the tyres all the time," he said. "They have so much grip, now we have to work on the chassis to get the car to work on them."

Jan Kopecky moved into the points as Manfred Stohl plummeted down the order with serious brake problems, while local man Jean-Marie Cuoq moved back into the top 10.

The Peugeot driver shone in the evening as he was third fastest through the final stage of the day, which took place on roads just six kilometres from his house.

The third leg of the rally takes place on Saturday, with just one superspecial stage in Monte Carlo taking place on Sunday.

Pos  Driver          Make           Time
 1.  Loeb            Citroen       1h57:41.1
 2.  Sordo           Citroen        +   25.2
 3.  Gronholm        Ford           + 1:15.7
 4.  Atkinson        Subaru         + 2:30.3
 5.  Hirvonen        Ford           + 2:47.5
 6.  Gardemeister    Mitsubishi     + 2:54.2
 7.  Solberg         Subaru         + 3:05.6
 8.  Kopecky         Skoda          + 3:45.5
 9.  Latvala         Ford           + 4:12.1
10.  Cuoq            Peugeot        + 4:31.0